Celebrate Successes Big and Small

The holiday season is a perfect reminder to celebrate successes both big and small. It’s a great time to look back at the year that has come to pass and pay tribute to all the good that has been accomplished at home, with friends, and at work.

But there’s no need to wait until your office holiday party to start celebrating. In fact, celebrating workplace victories should be part of your office culture all year long. Taking time to celebrate when something good happens is a simple way to keep morale high, to remind your employees of the grander mission of your organization (and their individual part in that mission), and to express gratitude for a job well done.

Here are a few simple best practices to keep in mind when you celebrate workplace success, beginning with the holidays and continuing into the New Year:

Celebrate at least once a week.

No, you don’t have to throw an office party every single week. But it’s easy and quite effective to take a moment to acknowledge accomplishments from the week prior once a week. Whether at the top of every all-office meeting or in a brief weekly round-up email, taking the time to name the people who have achieved something important helps those people feel appreciated and brings the whole office together.

Don’t overlook people in less flashy positions.

When calling out good work, it’s easy to focus in on sales or development. But don’t overlook administrative staff, IT, maintenance staff, and others who do a huge portion of the work for little-to-no glory. Acknowledging work anniversaries can be a simple way to make sure that everyone gets included and feels like part of the team.

Create opportunities to celebrate.

As the boss, it’s your responsibility to encourage celebration and find reasons for it. But you should also work to create a culture in which it’s easy for employees to call out each other’s good work. Something as simple as an announcement board where coworkers can leave praise for each other is a great way to get started.

Make celebrations public.

Thanking someone privately for their hard work or offering them a raise is great. That said, when possible, do what you can to also publicly acknowledge good work in a way that let’s people feel appreciated and seen. Public celebrations tend to have a longer-lasting impact and help people take more pride in what they have done.